S1 E35 Shit2TalkAbout Exploring Mental Health with Courtney McCarthy
Transcript was AI generated, if there are mistakes, please let me know! Thank you in advance! Hello, beautiful human. Thank you for joining. Shit. You don't want to talk about. We're stoked to have you be a part of the conversation changing shit. You don't want to talk about into shit to talk about. This show was created to have us open our minds and learn about new perspectives. Even when we don't agree with them, please be advised episodes can discuss content that is not suitable for all listeners and it can be triggering opinions of our guests expressed on the show are
their own. They do not necessarily represent the views of myself or the show. There are a few ways we could really use your support. Please share your favorite episode especially send them to someone that could really use the content we talked about, donate on paypal and Patreon, subscribe and rate the show
itunes and Spotify and follow on social media and join the conversation. It's shit to talk about. That's shit. The number two talk about links are in the episode description.
Jenn Junod
Hey, Courtney, thank you for joining shit. You don't want to talk about today and can you please introduce yourself and what shit you want to talk about? Today.
Courtney McCarthy
Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. So, my name is Courtney mccarthy. I am the owner and founder of Loo Fit, which stands for Love Your Body Fitness. I am an Ace Certified Group fitness instructor and mindset coach and I'm here to talk about my history with depression and generalized anxiety disorder.
Jenn Junod
Yay. Is that it like, do we say yay, we're like, so excited. Sure.
Courtney McCarthy
Yeah. I mean, I'm, I, I love the, the premise of your podcast. And I've done a lot of different podcasts. I mean, this is the first one where I've really gotten to dive into this particular topic and I think that it's, it's not something that's talked about enough, especially like openly without taboo and covering all the different facets. So I'm so excited to dive in today.
Jenn Junod
Yay. That part I can say yay for I and I, I know that in our intro call, we, we did di dive in a bit into like how we, you got to this point. I think before we really go through and I think the depression will probably intering mingle with. This is so you own a gym and how did that happen?
Courtney McCarthy
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we can dive into the history and the story as much as you like. I'm definitely not what you would call a typical fitness professional and that I think there's a lot of people in our industry who, you know, grew up as an athlete and then went to school right out, out of the gates for, you know, something like kinesiology. And then, and always knew that they were gonna be in fitness.
That was not at all the path that I took. I actually have a master's in public policy and public administration if you can believe it or not, like the furthest thing. But in my journey, especially as a young adult, as a woman in her twenties, that's when my issues of body dysmorphia and really an obsession with weight loss and being in a toxic relationship where my weight, you know, was blamed for some of our intimacy issues.
It was at that point that I discovered Zumba, that was my always joke. That was my gateway drug into fitness. And I it was at that point that marked the turning point for me in my relationship with movement in that this woman that I took this class with modeled for me and created for the first time that I'd ever experienced a safe space where it wasn't about burning calories.
It wasn't about, you know how you looked, it was about experiencing the joy of, of dancing, of moving your body, of feeling sexy, of having a blast and connecting with a group of other women and with her encouragement, that kind of became my mission is I wanted to give the gift that she gave me to other women, especially to, to really learn how to feel good in their bodies.
Jenn Junod, Courtney McCarthy
So yeah, and, and I can still relate with that.
Jenn Junod
I've, I've taken random dance classes and one that I absolutely fell in love with and I'm not sure people realize how hard it is. Its pole dancing.
Jenn Junod, Courtney McCarthy
Oh my God, I did, I did that for like six oh no, we lost audio.
Courtney McCarthy
We're back.
Jenn Junod
OK. Yeah. Like I was it so shocking. We were talking about pole dancing. We lost audio over it.
Courtney McCarthy
I know. So I took that for six months. It is, it is killer. Like on your body. You need, you need to, those the the people who do that are so unbelievably strong. Yeah.
Jenn Junod
And I, I just, and I, I love that there are classes now yet to with the fact of like body dysmorphia, I've definitely the way I've experienced that is I've always been a bigger girl. There was a time that I'll say it in us metrics. But I weighed roughly £250 and the lowest I've been is roughly about 100 and 50. And right now at this moment, I'm between 185 and 190.
And at my thinnest, I thought I was disgusting at my biggest, I thought I was disgusting. And the entire time I've always been so jealous of pole dancers and strippers because they, they're so ok with, like, showing their body and, can be nude and comfortable and comfortable with people looking at them and are so athletic and it, it's something that finally now, you know, I'm in my, I went one extreme to the other.
Now I'm like in the middle, that I'm actually comfortable with it. I'm like, I should probably work out a little more. That, that's what I tell myself. And then I'm like, you know, it's ok if I take a break from fitness to go to a different direction and how, like taking a pause on the Zumba side of things, how, when did this depression start showing up? No audio again? I lost you.
Courtney McCarthy
Oh, that's ok.
Jenn Junod
I think I can hear you. Yeah, I can hear you now.
Courtney McCarthy
Ok. I'll keep it here just in case. I just wanted to quickly jump back and talk about, that was exactly my experience as well. so many people, especially if you feel like crap. And if you have a poor relationship with your body, so many people see weight loss as the answer as the thing that, you know, if you lose weight that's gonna fix everything.
And I can similarly vouch for the same thing. I got to what many people would consider an ideal weight. I was like, under 130 had a flat stomach and I, exactly as you describe, like, I still had tons of body issues, I struggled with my anxiety. And, you know, that's, that's part of my journey as far as opening the studio, why our mission is so body positive and, and we don't talk about the numbers and we're really not about pursuing weight loss because through that, my personal
experience and then through a lot of research and, and training myself is recognizing that, you know, it's not the answer and, and there's so many other facets to it. So to come back to your other question as far as when I'll say my relationship with depression started, it started really young for me and I, I feel like I've actually lived most of my life in the, in kind of the orbit of, of depression, whether or not I actually was fully there.
It was always kind of in the background. I would say my, it first started when I was between like 11 and 14. So I, I was bullied in elementary school and really began to question my worth and who I was and I lost that sense of belonging. And, you know, when you're that young, you don't know how to ask for help and you kind of, I didn't know how not normal it was to feel the way that I felt.
And at the time, so when I got to high school, I started self mutilating as a way to cope with the feelings and the, and the pain. and at that point I did end up finally having a conversation with my parents letting them know kind of how bad things were. And that's when I got the official diagnosis when I was 14. So I was on medication for most of my teenage years, antidepressants and was off of them in my early twenties and, you know, was able to solve a lot of the issues that I had with the
extremely low mood, with the suicidal ideation that I had in my teens. However, in grad school, when I was doing my masters, you know, anytime you kind of put your life in like a pressure cooker, that's when any underlying mental health issues are definitely gonna come up and, and pose much more of a problem. So, that's when I received in grad school is when I received the generalized anxiety diagnosis.
And there's actually some question as to whether or not that was always part of the, the view. But I think especially in young women, there is a a knee jerk reaction to diagnose depression without necessarily looking at the anxiety component. So, I realize now that the two of them go hand in hand with me and to kind of come full circle. So I, I learned a lot quicker as an adult how to manage my anxiety and manage my depression.
when I was re diagnosed in in my early twenties and then with COVID, and again, the pressure of being an entrepreneur and a small business owner who's had to go through many, many lockdowns and many, many pivots. you know, the burnout of this year has definitely taken a toll on my mental health again. So we're kind of come full circle in that I recently have returned back to medication as a way to manage, you know, the, the struggles that I've had with my mood and with feeling low and
you know, we can talk about what that part was like too as far as like how, how it feels to, you know, get over the hump and maybe feel like you're, you're fixed and you got it under control. And then recognizing that for many of us, the reality is it's gonna always be a lifetime journey and there'll be times when it's better and you don't need the meds and then times when
you know, it's gonna come back around and you go, oh, I need a little bit of a, a lift. I need, I need some extra support during this phase of my life. So it's been a long journey.
Jenn Junod
But I can only imagine. And I'm, I'm grateful you're here and I can, a lot of your story, at least for myself is very relatable when I was 10. And I'm mentioning this because especially for those with born with the reproductive parts of, of a woman. because they are the ones that have to go through the, the, a lot of times go through the periods and, you know, puberty.
So I don't wanna say that it's not all people or anything like that. I just know for myself. well, for majority of teenage girls they start their period anyway, between the age of 13 to 17 and I started mine when I was 10. So what normally happens is you start your period somewhere before or after that, you start your own boobs and you know, A b, yep. Yep. And the thing about puberty for me was I got the period and it was killer, started trying to kill me since the day after Christmas when I
was 10 and only my right breast developed. So my left one was just flat. It was like nothing and it never developed and I was made fun of so much that they are. Why would you call someone lappy? Like, don't be a douche like, seriously. Like I'm not gonna go, like, judge somebody if they're, you know, like why? Especially like that.
Courtney McCarthy
That's so outside of your control.
Jenn Junod
Yeah. So I, they the doctors also put me on birth control to help manage my, my hormones by the time I was 11 or 12. And so I started learning to stuff my bra and all of that. And then when I was 14, they put me on antidepressants. They didn't necessarily diagnose me with anything. They just were, like your mom says, you're depressed. Here you go. Let's give you some pills. And even now talking to psychiatrists, we're not really sure if it's the hormones and the birth control, the
hormones and the, anti depressants or the, just the shitty upbringing I had, I became very heavy on self-mutilation and, suicide attempts and it was the type of thing that I didn't start getting this figured out until my thirties and I, as you were mentioning that hump of like going and starting to take medication again. I was against medication because I was like, no, no, no, no, no, this is gonna make me suicidal. I can't do that.
Courtney McCarthy
No, no, no, we're about the same age I think based on based on some of the ages that you just touched on. and it means that we after we were put on medication that young there was a ton of research that came out about the dangers of putting young kids on antidepressants for the increased risk for suicide ideation. Now, I was lucky enough in that the specific brand that I was on didn't increase those thoughts.
However, it's on the like super bad list now of like do not prescribe to kids under the age of 18 and I was on the highest possible dose that you could be on and it really does. anybody who's listening, who, who's struggling with the choice of medication because I 100% agree with you. It's, it was a very physically awful decision. I, it gave me other really awful physical side effects when I was that young, I want to really empower you to ask questions.
That that's a huge difference from where I'm at now with this current round of medication versus where I was at then. And I know it can be so hard when you're that age, right? Because no one's advocating for you and, and you're kind of being told what to do by these like medical authorities. But there are so many options out there now and you can find medications that are a better fit for you if you're experiencing negative side effects and you don't have to settle and you know, yeah,
just, just give yourself permission to ask questions and not be put on something that you don't feel comfortable with. Do the research advocate for yourself because it, the brand of medication and the type can really make it a and total game changing difference.
Jenn Junod
I 100% agree. And a part of that is you, you and I spoke about this before of there's this stigma that if you eat better and if you work out a ton, it's gonna just fix all of your depression and anxiety. And I, I found for myself it was definitely a struggle in the fact that I was doing all of those things that was partially how I got to the smallest, place I was at and, weight wise and it didn't change anything. It just made it go. I need to do more. I need to do harder.
Courtney McCarthy
Like, I'm never your obsession shifts. Instead of how do I lose weight?
Jenn Junod
How do I keep it off? Yeah. And, and it's the type of thing that, when I actually started taking it seriously, like I realized that I was all over the board. Like, no, my entire life, I've always been all over the board. Like, and I was undiagnosed with a DH D because again, as you were meant to be. Yeah, especially in women. that during, when we were teenagers, it, they did not realize that A DH D shows up differently in girls compared to boys.
And as an adult, they were like, hey, you're bipolar type two, you have anxiety. You have a DH D and I'm like, I just want to fix the A DH D. That's all, that's, that's all I have. I'm just a DH D, that's it. Give me that or all. I'll be good. I can do life. And the only after my craniotomy in 2020 did I really realize that I had to go on a mood stabilizer for my bipolar type two and for my depression and anxiety and it's so much I'm much more stable.
Yes. I still have my lows and I still have my highs because, with bipolar that's, that's life. It's just, it's much more stable than before. And you, you said that it, it was the last year that you decided to go back on the medication actually, this year.
Courtney McCarthy
This, well, I guess technically we're in 2022 now. Yes. So that in 2021. Ok. Ok.
Jenn Junod, Courtney McCarthy
Within the last year, there we go.
Jenn Junod
Within the last year. Why, what made you actually like go that route and decide that, that it's the right fit for you right now?
Courtney McCarthy
Yeah. And I think, you know, it, it totally relates to what you said too as far as I have never used the word when it comes to like my moods and my, and my mental health is like, especially when it comes to the anxiety portion is I'm never, I'm never fixed like I'm never cured if that makes sense. I think that that is the expectation, especially if like you're getting your first diagnosis. And you know, we talked a lot about this. So it took me a long time. There's so much shame around and as
you said, stigma around some of these you know, mental health issues and, and diagnoses that at first, the idea that I am a depressed person felt so heavy and there was so much shame and self hatred and feeling less than and again, feeling broken. because I was someone who struggled with this, especially because I was the first person in my family to ever have these sort of issues at least diagnosed and talked about it.
Jenn Junod
Yeah.
Courtney McCarthy
So a big part of it, of, of the language I tend to use now is I am someone with depression or I am somebody who has anxiety. And I really wanna differentiate of like me as a person and my worth are separate from the mental health issues that I struggle with. And, and that to me is a really empowering stance to take. And I also use the word man manage, I have tools to manage my depression.
I have tools to manage my anxiety, but generally, they're kind of like always hanging out, they're always my buds. And do you know, a a as we've talked about depending on what time in my life and what's happening in my life and the other stressors that I'm facing and, and the situations I find myself in, they might have a more of a presence than others.
So what really brought me to the decision to explore medication again? And it definitely was not something that came easily, like there was a lot of resistance, especially you know, one of the medications that I was on in my twenties, which is part of the reason I bring up the advocacy. But because even in my twenties, I did not ask enough questions.
I had a doctor that wrote me a prescription, put me on this medication. I took, it started having like crazy side effects, including, like my breath started leaking and I was not pregnant. Like they start, I started getting discharged and I went back to her and I was like, WTF and she's like, oh, I didn't mention that that was a potential side effect.
And I was like, no, no, I would distinctly remember that. And then the more I researched the particular medication she had put me on, it had like all these crazy side effects and tons of negative reviews. And I was like, I should have asked more questions. I, you know, I should, I shouldn't, I shouldn't have just trusted her blankly. I needed to advocate for myself.
So I had that experience in my mind and that was the last association I had with medic medication. So I was like, oh my God, no, but over the summer, it was the summer of 2021. How I knew that I needed that extra support is that the normal strategies and tools that I use to manage my mental health that normally would keep me in a stable place and would help pull me out of, you know, low places or, or those, those particular times of struggle stopped working, meaning that I was doing all the
things that I knew I should do that, you know, working out consistently. I was eating in a way that really fueled my body. I was meditating regularly. I was journaling. I was in therapy. I was doing all the things and they still just didn't work. My move with my mood was not improving. And if anything, it continued to get worse. And then I had gone, gosh, I had gone, I think, over a decade without a suicidal thought.
And then I had my first one and I was like, this is not ok. This is a hard line in the sand for me where, like, if I'm having those sort of thoughts, I need, I need, I need something else to come into the picture. And I'm actually really glad I did make the decision because as soon as I got on the medication, how I described it this time around was like a fog lifted.
And even though I still struggled with mood, it was, I had the clarity back where I could, I could differentiate the depressive and the anxious thoughts from myself when you're in it. It feels like it feels like it's just the truth. That's all you can see. That's all you're obsessed with. You spiral so easily. The lowness is all you can see. And the medication helped me pull back out and, and have that understanding of like, nope, there's a difference between the thoughts that I'm
having versus what's real and, and where I want to be. And then again, I can start using that those strategies and they started working more. So that's how I kind of looked at it. It's like the medication didn't, same thing. It didn't fix the depression. There's still a ton of work that I'm doing to try to get back to a better place. But it helped, it helped to provide me with that clarity that I needed for the tools to be able to work if that make. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Jenn Junod
Yeah, it definitely does. I, again, that is a very relatable situation for myself to, with how, when, my partner and I first started dating, he is not someone that really takes any medications other than his insulin for diabetes. Like, he's just like, no, I don't believe in them like I, right. So I quit my Adderall cold turkey just because I was like, oh, I, back then I just, like, molded into whoever I was dating who they wanted me to be. And I realized that that wasn't healthy for me.
So that was when I was first diagnosed with, or like, went back and they were like, yeah, you can go back on your Adderall. and then fast forward to 2020. That's all I'm taking. And I have my brain surgery and where the surgery was is on my right, temp right behind my right temple and that is where all your long term memories are stored. So, all the trauma from back in the day decided to come resurface. They didn't come hang out.
Jenn Junod, Courtney McCarthy
And I was like, which is what you want after brain surgery.
Courtney McCarthy
Right. Yeah.
Jenn Junod
They, like, there's not enough, there's not enough research to say that that would have even been a symptom afterwards. Like, it wasn't something that they could have really been, like, yeah, this is gonna happen. All right. Honestly, I'm like, well, I'm in a better place, like I'm working through it. So I guess it's all good. And, yeah, I found it the, like, my neurologist, they also had therapists and psychiatrists there.
They got me on my medication, went on mood stabilizers and then I moved from Arizona to Colorado during 2021 and Adderall is a controlled substance that cannot be prescribed or transferred between pharmacies, especially across state lines. Oh, wow. And so when I moved up here I had to find a new doctor and I found a new doctor and they were like, hey, like, we need to try two noncontrolled substances before we give you your Adderall.
And I'm like, but I know my Adderall works. Like, why am I gonna mess with it if I know it works? And they were like, hey, this is just policy and I was like, ok, well, I'm out of my Adderall. So I guess, and within, they told me I had to be on it for four weeks and within two weeks. I was downward spiraling. Like I'm still on my mood stabilizer. I'm still on my antidepressant.
But whatever this medication was, it totally, like, screwed me up. So I finally convinced them, I'm like, hey, just give me my Adderall back. I, that's all I'm asking for. Like, I know it works. I'm not trying to be a junkie. I just know it works. And they, they put me on a medication that looks very similar, like the, as the Adderall actual name because Adderall is a brand where they put me on a totally different medication and I didn't realize it for a month or two because I thought it
was the same. And I'm like, huh, I wonder why this isn't really working the same. Like, I mean, I'm not as bad but it's just, I'm not as concentrated. I'm still, like, all over the board. And that's when I realized that they didn't give me the Adderall. And I was just like, you know, I can't, I can't trust that. Like you guys already fought me like to do.
And I'm like, I already understand that. I'm like, what actually works with me? And I ended up going to a new hospital here in, in Colorado and they're like, hey, we're just gonna like, retest you for everything. But it sounds like, you know, Adderall is gonna be your best bet your mood. Sr sounds like you're doing good and they're like, huh? You also have PTSD. So you work through that too. And I'm like, all right, I guess that's cool. Whatever. This is not a new medication and
they're not trying to completely flip everything that I figured out, worked upside down and what I was hearing from you. And also my own experiences is doctor visits and doctors and medications are not all created equally. There are people you click with, not click with and how did you have that conversation with your current doctor? Like to like, what kind of questions did you ask before you went on this medication this time around?
Courtney McCarthy
Yeah. And I think it was, it was a combination of both what I asked and also like independent research that I did on my own. I mean, I am very thankful in that when it comes to speaking with professionals about my mental health, there's like no shame in my game anymore. Like I'm just like, this is what's up, this is what I need. You know, I, I try to be as blunt as possible because I, you know, because of those past issues and, and how I've learned to advocate myself, I just wanna like get
right to the, you know, to the point of the visit. So I did feel comfortable saying, you know, I'm having not so great thoughts, I need some assistance. So I also made sure to fully disclose my concerns. I told her everything that had happened to me before, on these previous medications going right back to the first ones that I was on high school, I talked about my hesitancy.
I talked about the fear that I had about the negative side effects and how I really wanted to avoid them. And I was very grateful and that this doctor while I have other issues with her, while I had other issues with her in, in some of the, the beliefs and the values that differed from mine, she really did hear me. So when she, told me what medication that she wanted to try him on, she talked about why, why, like how it was different from the two previous, or the three previous brands that I
had been on, and related it back to those risks, you know, saying that, you know, this one, was shown to have less risk of this physical symptom. It's, it's, you know, more likely to do why she even talked about. you know, that she was putting me on one that only worked at serotonin production rather than, I forget the exact term. But in there's a another type that inhibits another type of hormone.
And so she's like, let's just try you on that because that will have less side effects. So that even brought me to a place of comfort in, in feeling her. And, you know, it's great that you did what you did as far as like, exactly, like, seek out other doctors. Like, just because, and I'm, and I'm in Ontario and I'm in Canada, which means our system works a little bit different in that.
it can be quite hard to find, a family doctor but just because it's hard, doesn't mean that you shouldn't still try, you know, don't accept the first answer you're given, especially if somebody is making you feel not heard or giving you that idea of like, I know better than you in your, in, in, especially when it comes to your body and your mental health and what you need.
Like go get a 2nd and 3rd opinion, like fourth opinion, whatever you need to do to, to feel like you can express what's going on in your body. And someone says, like I hear you, I see you, I believe you and meets you where you're at. So I also then went home but she gave me the prescription and even so it took me two weeks from the time that I had the prescription to really feel comfortable actually going and filling it.
And I gave myself that time. I said that that was ok. I went home, I then verified like I, I took the name of the medication and the brand. I looked up reviews which I didn't realize was a thing. Thank God for the internet. Now there's reviews online for different brands and I was like, this is fantastic. So like real people who, who had negative experiences, who had positive experiences, which gave me, I feel like I'm much more relatable picture of what I was looking at so to speak.
and hearing how it impacted like real lives who were struggling with similar things that I was and I sat with it, I gave myself two weeks to sit with it and, you know, I had lots of conversations with my husband who again, I'm so grateful for, he's been very supportive this whole time. And he also said he's like, if, if, if this is not something you feel comfortable with, you don't have to.
And as soon as I gave myself that permission to, to either not do it or do it, it made the choice so much easier and it made it about my well being and that's how I was like, you know what I'm gonna try and same thing I gave myself permission. If I try this and I hate it, then I'm gonna go off or I'm gonna ask for something different and, and I was on it for about six months and I recently did ask for a medication change because, you know, just like we talked about it, like sometimes you find
something that works and if it works for you and you don't need to be adjusted, fantastic, you can be on it your whole life if that's what makes your, your body feel bad. But also don't be surprised if that isn't the case. And for me, it wasn't the case. I felt like the first six months or sorry, the first four months were great. And then things started to shift again and I wanted more for myself.
So I started experiencing something called emotional blunting, which is where I didn't feel the negative thoughts. But I also was no longer feeling the true range of my positive thoughts. Like I felt like I was kind of just like there and I, and, you know, I'm sure that a lot of people might experience that too on medication and think like, well, at least I don't have the negative thoughts.
So I guess this is fine and, and I was like, I, again, I, I want more and I'm not having the negative thoughts and I wanna still like, enjoy spending time with my husband and feel good about that rather than like just being there. So same thing I went back to my doctor and I said, you know, I'm really happy with the fact that I haven't had any crazy boob leakage or side effects like that, you know, but I want more.
And so we, we, again, she really talked about exactly what I was experiencing and exactly, you know, the aspects of the medication that I wanted to tweak and improve. She listened and suggested anyone and I went through the same process, meaning I took it home, did the research sat with it for, I think the same thing, I think I only sat with her for a week this time and decided to go through with it and, and I'm making sure to have regular follow ups with her
throughout this process to keep doing the same thing, to keep checking with myself, feeling how I feel, having conversations with her and making sure it is really a good fit.
Jenn Junod
I, a big part that you, you talked about that. I think a lot of us in general don't think about when it comes to our mental health is the hormones behind it. And it's a hormone balance or imbalance or changes. And this is, it definitely can be very, very complex and take time to find, especially I, I am not a per like a medical professional.
Jenn Junod, Courtney McCarthy
So I can only imagine like those that are transitioning or, you know, because they're taking hormones that it may actually be a bit different for them and their journey of going through, this would be a lot different and as well as I'm a female, cisgender female and I have very high testosterone and PC OS and that's
gonna affect me a lot differently than someone else that doesn't definitely depending on where I'm at in my cycle absolutely impacts, you know, how I'm feeling on a given day.
Courtney McCarthy
So, and I was, and it actually was an educational component for me as well because I think that same thing with our age, like, I think that medication has come a really long way. So the medication that she has me on now is actually not an SSR I, and I was like, there are non ssris antidepressants and that was new to me. So I'm on now, I'm trying a dopamine, antidepressant and I'm like, cool, like, so even just knowing, like, having that knowledge of, of, like, there's just so many options
now, like there's just so many so like it can and don't and don't, don't take that on again as like a a failure of yourself if the first one doesn't work if the 15th 1 doesn't work, like your body is a magical being and there's so many different variables, as you said, that might go into it, hormones, you know, genetics, you know, your metabolism, all of these things can impact how a medication works in your body and it's ok to, for
it to take, it's like dating, right? It's ok for it to take a little while, for you to like, feel out which one's your soul mate medication and maybe agree. And that's ok too.
Jenn Junod
Agreed and, and adding to that, I know just so at the end of February, so for all of those listening, we are recording in the beginning of February 2022 and at the end of February, I'm actually gonna be having a hysterectomy and having a boob job to redo Lappy. Very excited about this.
Courtney McCarthy
I feel like you need to have like a, a celebration to say goodbye to Lappy.
Jenn Junod
Right. Well, I had, one implant done when I was 17 just to like, cover it up and now I'm actually gonna have them, like, match as best as a surgeon can. I'm very excited, but I know also going into that, that a post surgery, depression, especially with plastic surgery and that's considered a cosmetic surgery even though I'm like, bro, it never developed. But it is something considered cosmetic that expectations. A lot of times are set that people go into a depression afterwards
and also with my hysterectomy that may cause a lot of different hormones as well and cause that everything I know right now I think you go when I get done and then I'll have to re go through this journey again. And those yes are big changes. But there's been times in my life that they're very, very small changes that end up doing this. Yeah. So yes, to your point medication is plane journey and it is not made for everybody. A lot of people really get a lot of support from it.
Jenn Junod, Courtney McCarthy
A lot of people don't get support from it and there's just like the reality is there's no right way to struggle with your mental health, right.
Courtney McCarthy
There's no right way to be depressed. There's no right way to be an anxious person. Like there's just, you know, it's, it's, and it's what I say to my clients even to when, when you're thinking about a fitness journey, right? Like the only guarantee is in life that you're go is, is that you're gonna experience change. Right? And especially, yes, if you're in, if you're in a body with female reproductive organs, there's a lot of shit that's gonna change your life.
You know, if you get pregnant, if you go through postpartum perimenopause and then menopause, like your hormones are gonna change and all of those will impact you. And those are just like the major stages. Same thing, you've got a 28 day cycle, your hormones adjust and fluctuate, which means that and as you always go through stressors, right? It means that the way that you feel and the way that medication works or the type of support you need, I will say may change, but I would say
likely will change and that's ok. It's ok to if something worked and then it doesn't, it's ok. It doesn't mean that you're broken, it doesn't mean that you did something wrong. That's just life, things change.
Jenn Junod
Agreed and, and you actually kind of segued right into my next question. So this is great is all what we need when going through and having these type of mental health. I hate the word issues. I'm, I'm still like, like challenges isn't much better, you know, like mental health buddies that doesn't make it sound any better like trying to put a positive spin on it. But while we're having these mental health issues, what we need as support and the tools we have can change and most likely,
as you said, will change. You mentioned at the very, very beginning to bring it all the way back around that you got into fitness by going to a Zumba class and really fell in love with being able to see that it was about experiencing it instead of the actual like fitness. Yeah. How did you go from that to starting your own company and business? And then also how has the support you've needed changed throughout that journey?
Courtney McCarthy
Yeah, it's a great question. So as I mentioned, Zumba was my gateway drug and that's what opened the doors and allowed me to see a different way of relating to my body, especially as it came to exercise. Now, this was also not like, you know, this happened and I was same thing I was just fixed, it was still a self discovery process. But it, you know, through Zumba, I started to feel comfortable in the gym again.
I felt like I deserved to be at the gym. And then I started exploring lifting weights and lifting weights, I will say was it was another huge moment for me because both dance through Zumba and also through lifting weights became major tools. For managing my anxiety, especially lifting weights became something that I could channel the like energy that would go into a thought spiral.
You know, I always joke that if you're underneath a massive dumbbell or a massive, you know, weight bar, you are not thinking about the what ifs you're thinking about getting that up and not crushing yourself. So it became, it became a way, especially as an anxious person where my thoughts could be very chaotic and, and you know, very one directional.
At the same time of like obsessing about something, the, the gym and lifting weights and being in the moment could was something that definitely could quiet my mind. So I saw how positive a role that fitness and movement can play in managing your mental health and in feeling better. And at the same time, it went hand in hand with as far as healing my body dysmorphia, it taught me the power, especially as a woman.
Someone who identifies as a woman feeling strong in my body was a complete new thing, you know, especially growing up in the nineties where like it was cool to look like, you know, a cocaine low riders. I hated those. Well, just like very, very tiny with nothing on you. You know, II I remember having thoughts all the time of like, oh, you don't wanna look muscular, that's not womanly, that's not feminine.
And as soon as I realized what it was like to feel strong, like not about the looks at all, but like to feel strong in my body to, to be able to lift things, to be able to, you know, feel capable. That also was a huge mental health game changer because I could, I, again, I was relating to my body in a, in a new way and for so much of mental health, as much as we think it's all going up on up here between our eyebrows, you know, the somatic element, which is learning how to feel your feelings,
physically in your body. Learning that link became again a huge strategy and a huge tool in my toolbox. So what happened for me as far as why I decided to become an entrepreneur and, and open my own studio was, you know, I was having all these personal revelations about my, my relationship with fitness. And at the time I, I had started teaching, so I'd become a zoom instructor and, and gotten my group in a certification and I was teaching in other gyms, especially a lot of like the big
box gyms, I won't name names, but the big box gyms and I started seeing the disconnect of like the things that I was learning and the approach that I was taking to my clients and how I showed up in my classes and what I wanted them to walk away with was absolutely at odds with what the majority of the industry around me, if not, almost all of the industry around me, like the, the gym environment was so toxic and I kind of equated to like an alcoholic going into a bar.
If you're trying to make these sort of changes in the relationship with your body and you're going somewhere that's constantly pushing the message of you need to be thin, you need to lose weight. There's only one form of being beauty and healthy and strong and desirable. It's pretty much like impossible to feel better about yourself. So the longer I worked there, the more I was just like, it's not enough that I could create a safe space in my class for the people who came to my class.
I was like, I want to create and show that it's possible a safe space from the ground up, meaning that as soon as you walk in the entire premise and the values behind it were different. So, it's why Louis Buffet stands for everybody. Fitness. As I said, you know, our, our guiding mission is to use fitness and movement, especially what we call joyful movement, which is movement for no other purpose than it makes you feel good and brings you joy.
Yeah. So it doesn't matter what you look like, it doesn't matter what kind of movement it is. We explore lots of nontraditional types of movement here. You know, the, the purpose is really to use fitness as a foundation for feeling good in your body, to healing your relationship with your body, to feeling competent and definitely that mental health component.
So we also don't just focus on movement. We, we talk a lot about mindset. We do a lot of techniques from like cognitive behavioral therapy where we're talking about, you know, challenging those assumptions, being aware of diet culture and these, you know, fat phobic biases that play into your perception of self that play into how you look at yourself, how to be forgiving, how to be compassionate, how to use all of these tools that are available to us as a way to feel better about
your body, to feel better about yourself, to build your confidence, as I said to, to feel more in control of your health and what that looks like for you and to be able to again advocate for yourself and, and not just accept the vision that we're given of like, again, health equals, you know, eat, eat less, move more, look a certain way. It's like, no, no, no, no, no.
In the same way that we've been talking about of like no different medications work for you. They're gonna work for different times in your life. It's the exact same thing with health and fitness, right? Of like, you have to define what works for you in your life. And that's kind of like an evolving, you know, ever growing thing as well as like what, what's healthy for you now may not be what's healthy for you in 10 years.
And we, we have the power to decide that nobody else has the right to tell you what is best for you and your body. And those are the sort of skills that, that we want to teach. And I will say if there is any entrepreneurs or small business owners out there, especially like, obviously, I didn't think about a global pandemic being a possibility when I opened my gym.
That was definitely not one of the scenarios I went through or the risks that I went through. It has been both single handedly the most challenging experience of my life, but also the most worthwhile and rewarding. At the same time, I, I have learned more in these last four years than, you know, I've got six years of schooling under my belt. This by far tops it as far as like return on investment of personal growth.
And, and I think too, it's, it's taught me a lot about myself and my mental health and, and my relationship to my body and, and same thing, you know, that I just spoke about like the, the biases and assumptions that I had and the stories that I had. So I'm really grateful, even, even though the struggle of entrepreneurship got me back on medication, I'm still really grateful for it because I feel, you know, and you can say the same thing if you're listening, you know, whether or not
it's entrepreneurship or not any challenging period that you go through in your life, it's worth it. If you come out ahead in the sense of like, have you learned, have you grown as a person? Because for me, I'm not the same person that I was when I first opened the studio and I'm so appreciative of that.
So I'm gonna take all the things that I learned with me and keep trying to be better and keep trying to, you know, help and make a difference in the ways that I can. So, yeah, it's been a wild ride.
Jenn Junod
I bet. I bet. And, and to make sure that we cover all bases, is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we haven't talked about yet?
Courtney McCarthy
No, not specifically. I mean, if, if anybody who's listening has any questions about joyful movement because that could be like a whole other, you know, side of our conversation, please reach out to me. I'd love to, to share resources with you because as I said, it was a changing, learning how to change my relationship with my body and, and especially my relationship with exercise.
Jenn Junod, Courtney McCarthy
As far as managing my, my anxiety and depression, absolute game changer and I, something that's popping into my mind quite a bit as we've been going through all this.
Jenn Junod
And I've been waiting for this specific question of what are some words of wisdom, but what are some words of wisdom that you would want to tell your employees, your clients and yes our audience as well. But more specifically the people you interact with day in day because you're not only an entrepreneur, you're a leader in your, in your space and you know, being a role model is so important. So what would you say to those individuals?
Courtney McCarthy
Yeah, I think the most powerful advice that I, that I always come back to and, and words that I want anybody who ever interacts with me to kind of take away with them is that you're not broken. There are so many industries when it comes to like the fashion industry and the beauty industry and the fitness industry and the diet industry that want you to believe that that's true that it's your fault that, you know, the reason you struggle or the reason that you don't fit the mold or the
reason that things haven't worked for you is because of your failures, right? It's you, you're not hard working enough, you're not, you don't have enough willpower, you weren't, you know, strong enough, you couldn't, you couldn't follow through. And the longer that I, that I'm doing what I do and the more time that I spend coaching people and helping people through their journeys, like that's the biggest thing that you need to remember is like you're not broken, you are being
presented often with solutions or a formula to feel better that, that that's broken, the system is broken, the industry is broken. So as much as it's easy for me to say, it absolutely is the journey. But like stop blaming yourself. It's, it's not, it's not you, it's them.
Jenn Junod
I like it. I like it. You can break up with the broken system. Yeah.
Courtney McCarthy
And as soon as you do that again, it, it opens up a whole another world of relating, as I said to your body, to your mental health, to your diagnosis, to the solutions and the tools that are out there. It, it, it puts the power back in your hands
Jenn Junod
and I know you mentioned this a little bit ago, but just to make sure we got it covered, what are ways that people can reach out to you?
Courtney McCarthy
Yeah. So the, I'm, I'm big on Instagram right now. I love reels. OK? So you can find us at Loo Foot, which is Loyobofit. And it's the same for our website Loyo buffet.com. We are also on Facebook at Loo. And if you wanna reach out to me personally, it's my name Courtney Cou RT Ney at Le buffet.com, especially if you have questions around, you know, as you can probably tell by this podcast, I'm a very open book and I never want people to feel
alone. So if there's something that you're going through that, that you relate to in my journey and you wanna talk and just have somebody that will listen. I'm always here.
Jenn Junod
Amazing. And last, but not least what is something that you're grateful for?
Courtney McCarthy
Oh, such a, such a good question when you told me this was coming. I was like, oh I will say that I'm gonna, I'm gonna cheat this question. I'm gonna say two things. All right. I will say my husband, I have to start off with that And that, you know, again, any entrepreneurs know that you are not an entrepreneur in a vacuum that it, that it absolutely permeates every aspect of your life.
And you know, he's, I'm, I'm so grateful to have him because he's allowed me to go on this journey and been such a pillar of support where like I didn't have to worry about, you know, our relationship when the rest of my life was, was very messy. But the other thing that I'm also grateful for is community and that's both my community that I've made here through our studio.
But also community of fellow entrepreneurs and small business owners and also people like you, Jen, who, you know, are willing to create platforms and opportunities and safe spaces to have these sorts of conversations. I think that in my younger years, I had this idea that I did have to do it alone. And again, that, that things were so taboo to talk about. And I think the, the older I get the more I recognize that it's sure you could try to do it alone, but it's so much better if you
don't, it's so much better to be able to, you know, have friendships and, and connect with other people and, and have that sense of belonging and, and seeing yourself and other people. So those, those have been the two things that, especially over the last two years with crazy pandemic life. Those are the things that keep getting me through to the next day.
Jenn Junod
I love it. And, and for myself, a piece of gratitude for today would be something I've been thinking about a lot. Is there are people that help so much that you can never repay, of giving you a hand up. I, I definitely wanna say a hand up because I've, I've moved in with friends when I got out of bad relationships. I've kindness of people show up all around the world when I've traveled.
And it's, it's so much that I used to feel so guilty because I would never figure out how to pay them back. And I, I don't even remember who told me this and they're like, you never have to pay it back to pay it forward. And that is, I'm just grateful for having the ability now with the podcast, with the platform to be able to pay it forward where I wasn't always in that spot and I may not be in the future and that is something that's so beautiful is we as a human race, we are all about community
and taking care of one another. And this podcast is the biggest purpose of it is to make sure we know we're not alone because yes, sometimes we choose to do it alone yet. I know for myself many times I felt alone and that is the biggest reason that this podcast was created. So I am so grateful for being able to give it forward.
Courtney McCarthy
Yes. Well said that was, that was beautiful.
Jenn Junod
Thank you. Thank you. Well done. Thank you, Courtney for being on the show today. Take care.
Courtney McCarthy
Thank you for having me. Have a good one.
Hello again, beautiful human. What did you get out of today's episode? We'd love to hear what was most impactful to you. We all know someone that could have really used this episode. So please send it their way. Remind them that they're not alone. Stay tuned for new episodes every Wednesday. Here's a few ways that we could really use your support to keep shit.
You don't want to talk about going share an episode. Let's get the message out there. Donate on paypal or Patreon, subscribe and read the show on itunes or Spotify and follow us on social media shit to talk about shit. The number two, talk about. Bye.
